Lucknow, Oct 5 — The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced the names of eight candidates for the upcoming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh on Monday. The biennial elections for ten Rajya Sabha seats in the country’s most populous state are scheduled on October 16.
The announcement of candidates comes a day ahead of the last date for filing nominations for the Rajya Sabha elections.
Dharampal Singh, Radhakant Ojha, Prakash Pal, Vidyasagar Sonkar, Gopi Krishna Pandey, Priyanka Singh Rawat, Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan and Shruti Gangwar are the BJP’s eight Rajya Sabha picks, who will seek election to the Upper House from Uttar Pradesh.
The list of candidates shows the party’s calibrated approach to address the demographic considerations and caste equations, while giving adequate weightage to women's representation. Shruti Gangwar and Priyanka Singh Rawat are the party’s two women nominees in the list of eight candidates.
The BJP is expected to comfortably win 7 of 10 seats in the October 16 Rajya Sabha elections.
Samajwadi Party (SP), which boasts of 101 lawmakers in the 403-member state Assembly, has the strength to win two seats. Akhilesh Yadav-led party recently nominated Ram Gopal Yadav and Dhanraj Nathwani, a senior executive at Reliance Industries Limited, as its candidates.
Biennial elections for 10 seats will take place on October 16. The BJP is set to secure seven seats comfortably, while the SP is expected to grab two seats on its own. The tenth seat will be up for grabs as both parties will put in their electoral might, thereby raising speculation about possible cross-voting.
Earlier, the BJP announced its candidates for one Rajya Sabha seat in West Bengal and Uttarakhand each on Sunday.
As per the current Rajya Sabha strength, the BJP has 116 lawmakers, making it the single largest party in the Upper House.
With the BJP eyeing victory in the upcoming biennial elections, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s tally in the 245-member House is set to get stronger.